Around Asia: Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi wins libel suit

Award-winning actress Zhang Ziyi has won an undisclosed settlement from Boxun News for a series of reports claiming she slept with top Chinese officials in exchange for huge amounts of money.

The Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon star sued the US-based website for dragging her name through the mud after running a series of stories claiming Communist Party officials paid her $100 million in exchange of sex.

The site also published stories about her alleged affair with ousted top-rank politician Bo Xilai, who was sentenced to life in prison for accepting bribes, embezzlement and abuse of power.

Boxun retracted its story and publicly apologized. “These false reports about Zhang Ziyi should never have been published,” Boxun News said in a statement. “As a result, Boxun News now renders its unreserved apolog to Zhang Ziyi, has removed the entire series of articles about Zhang Ziyi from the Boxun News website and issues this formal retraction.”

It added that its sources “cannot support the information reported”. The website had previously said its stories came from anonymous sources in China.

The scandal surrounding the Beijing-born actress has been all over Chinese media for months.

Ziyi had posted a short statement on her official Sina Weibo account, saying: “Nineteen months, and nearly 600 nights and days, is perhaps not very long for a scandal case, but it is long enough to destroy an innocent person’s reputation.”

“The law has brought back justice and my good name. Remember, rumormongers, persisting in evil brings about self-destruction,” she said on another post.